Chamber and committees

Questions and answers

Parliamentary questions can be asked by any MSP to the Scottish Government or the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body. The questions provide a means for MSPs to get factual and statistical information.

Written questions must be answered within 10 working days (20 working days during recess)
Other questions such as Topical, Portfolio, General and First Minister's Question Times are taken in the Chamber

Urgent Questions aren't included in the Question and Answers search. There is a SPICe fact sheet listing Urgent and emergency questions.

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Question reference: S3W-29142

Asked by: Gavin Brown, MSP for Lothians, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 19 November 2009
Current Status: Answered by Jim Mather on 2 December 2009

To ask the Scottish Executive how many meetings of the Small Business Consultative Group took place in 2008.

Question reference: S3W-29144

Asked by: Gavin Brown, MSP for Lothians, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 19 November 2009
Current Status: Answered by Jim Mather on 2 December 2009

To ask the Scottish Executive when the Small Business Consultative Group last met.

Question reference: S3W-29141

Asked by: Gavin Brown, MSP for Lothians, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 19 November 2009
Current Status: Answered by Jim Mather on 2 December 2009

To ask the Scottish Executive how many meetings of the Small Business Consultative Group took place in 2007.

Question reference: S3W-29143

Asked by: Gavin Brown, MSP for Lothians, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 19 November 2009
Current Status: Answered by Jim Mather on 2 December 2009

To ask the Scottish Executive how many meetings of the Small Business Consultative Group have taken place in 2009

Question reference: S3W-29322

Asked by: Gavin Brown, MSP for Lothians, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 24 November 2009
Current Status: Answered by Fergus Ewing on 2 December 2009

To ask the Scottish Executive what the average fine was for possessing (a) heroin, (b) cocaine, (c) ecstasy, (d) cannabis and (e) amphetamines in the Lothians region in each of the last 10 years, broken down by sheriff court.

The available information is given in the following table.

Average (Mean) Fine (£) for Possession of Selected Drugs¹, by Sheriff Court 1999-2000 to 2007-08²

	2001-02²		2002-03		2003/04		2004-05
Sheriff Court/Drug	No of Fines	Mean	No of Fines	Mean	No of Fines	Mean	No of Fines	Mean
Edinburgh
Cannabis	3	150	8	116	16	225	33	130
Heroin	0	-	6	221	16	269	44	181
Cocaine	0	-	0	-	5	310	17	254
Amphetamines	0	-	1	100	3	183	7	140
Ecstasy	1	150	3	333	12	213	20	194
Haddington
Cannabis	0	-	5	120	1	175	2	138
Heroin	0	-	1	100	2	400	2	188
Cocaine	0	-	0	-	0	-	2	175
Amphetamines	0	-	0	-	0	-	2	188
Ecstasy	0	-	0	-	5	430	5	205
Linlithgow
Cannabis	1	100	2	100	4	125	10	123
Heroin	0	-	0	-	4	281	3	317
Cocaine	0	-	2	175	1	250	1	400
Amphetamines	0	-	1	300	0	-	0	-
Ecstasy	0	-	0	-	4	256	6	171
Lothians
Cannabis	4	138	15	115	21	203	45	128
Heroin	0	-	7	204	22	283	49	189
Cocaine	0	-	2	175	6	300	20	253
Amphetamines	0	-	2	200	3	183	9	151
Ecstasy	1	150	3	333	21	273	31	191

Sheriff Court/Drug	2005-06		2006-07		2007-08
Sheriff Court/Drug	No of Fines	Mean	No of Fines	Mean	No of Fines	Mean
Edinburgh
Cannabis	24	162	30	165	17	139
Heroin	25	162	45	193	41	172
Cocaine	17	284	31	249	41	190
Amphetamines	6	158	5	187	1	150
Ecstasy	20	230	28	167	37	231
Haddington
Cannabis	1	40	3	142	4	206
Heroin	4	175	3	195	3	200
Cocaine	5	149	0	-	1	100
Amphetamines	3	183	3	267	0	0
Ecstasy	1	100	1	500	1	140
Linlithgow
Cannabis	10	126	13	166	10	212
Heroin	5	205	4	275	3	187
Cocaine	5	340	1	150	7	254
Amphetamines	1	75	5	127	1	170
Ecstasy	3	168	3	137	3	360
Lothians
Cannabis	35	148	46	164	31	171
Heroin	34	170	52	199	47	174
Cocaine	27	269	32	245	49	198
Amphetamines	10	157	13	182	2	160
Ecstasy	24	217	32	174	41	238

Average (Mean) Fine (£) for Possession of Selected Drugs¹, by District Court, 1999-00 to 2007-08²

District Court³/Drug	2001-02²		2004-05		2007-08
District Court³/Drug	No of fines	Mean	No of fines	Mean	No of fines	Mean
East Lothian
Cannabis	0	-	4	109	0	-
Amphetamines	0	-	1	150	0	-
Edinburgh, City of
Cannabis	2	58	11	63	2	80
Heroin	0	-	1	75	0	-
West Lothian
Cannabis	0	-	6	93	0	-
Lothians
Cannabis	2	58	21	80	2	80
Heroin	0	-	1	75	0	-
Amphetamines	0	-	1	150	0	-

Notes:

1. Where main offence.

2. Data on type of drug commenced in 2001-02 and in that year was recorded against 2 percent of possession of drug offences in the Lothians. It has since been recorded progressively more frequently; over the last four years, the type of drug is known in around 60 per cent of possession of drugs offences.

3. Includes stipendiary magistrates in Glasgow, and justice of the peace.

Question reference: S3W-29145

Asked by: Gavin Brown, MSP for Lothians, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 19 November 2009
Current Status: Answered by Jim Mather on 2 December 2009

To ask the Scottish Executive how frequently the Small Business Consultative Group should meet.

Question reference: S3W-29146

Asked by: Gavin Brown, MSP for Lothians, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 19 November 2009
Current Status: Answered by Jim Mather on 2 December 2009

To ask the Scottish Executive when the Small Business Consultative Group will next meet.

Question reference: S3W-29255

Asked by: Gavin Brown, MSP for Lothians, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 23 November 2009
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 1 December 2009

To ask the Scottish Executive how many prescriptions for (a) sibutramine and (b) orlisat have been dispensed to individuals aged (a) under 16, (b) 16 to 21, (c) 22 to 30 and (d) over 30 in the NHS Lothian area in each of the last five years.

It is not possible to identify from the information collected centrally, medicines dispensed to patients broken down by the age categories requested.

Data on the number of prescribed items for sibutramine and orlistat dispensed to patients aged under 16 years and all other patients in the NHS Lothian area can be found in the answer to question S3W-28365 on 6 November 2009. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament''s website, the search facility for which can be found at:

http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/Apps2/Business/PQA/Default.aspx.

Question reference: S3W-29081

Asked by: Gavin Brown, MSP for Lothians, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 18 November 2009
Current Status: Answered by Fergus Ewing on 27 November 2009

To ask the Scottish Executive how many people have been charged with racism in the Lothians region in each of the last three years, broken down by local authority area and manner of disposal.

The Scottish Government Court Proceedings database, which is derived from data held on the criminal history system, does not hold information on the number of people charged.

The unit of analysis used to derive these data is persons proceeded against. Persons are counted once for each occasion on which they are proceeded against. If more than one proceeding is disposed of on the same day, each occasion will be counted separately.

Where a person is proceeded against for more than one crime or offence, only the main charge is counted. The main charge is the one receiving the severest penalty if one or more charges are proved. If no charge is proved then the one reaching the furthest stage in proceedings is the main one.

The available information is given in the following table.

Persons Proceeded Against¹ in the Lothians Region for Racism^{2, 3, 4,} by Approximate Local Authority Area⁵, 2004-05 to 2006-07

Local Authority/Result	2005-06	2006-07	2007-08
East Lothian
Not Guilty	1	0	4
Custody	1	1	2
Community sentence	4	0	2
Monetary	3	5	6
Other	1	1	0
Total	10	7	14
Edinburgh, City of
Not Guilty	38	55	51
Custody	26	36	36
Community sentence	26	24	19
Monetary	80	85	123
Other	18	25	13
Total	188	225	242
West Lothian
Not Guilty	5	13	10
Custody	4	6	5
Community sentence	7	7	4
Monetary	11	27	11
Other	2	1	3
Total	29	54	33
Lothians
Not Guilty	44	68	65
Custody	31	43	43
Community sentence	37	31	25
Monetary	94	117	140
Other	21	27	16
Total	227	286	289

Notes:

1. Data source is the Scottish Government Court Proceedings database.

2. Includes the offences of racially aggravated harassment, racially aggravated conduct and other offences with a racial aggravator recorded against them.

3. The recording of aggravator codes has improved over time therefore caution is needed when comparing changes over time. 2005-06 is the first year where it has been considered that the use and recording of racial aggravator codes from the Scottish Government Court Proceedings database has been of sufficient coverage to be used.

4. The data recording codes for aggravators changed on 10 March 2008. The new codes will be reconciled against the existing codes when the 2008-09 data is available in March 2010.

5. Incorporates an approximate mapping of sheriff courts into local authority areas. Some sheriff courts will deal with cases from more than one local authority area. Midlothian does not contain a sheriff court.

Question reference: S3W-29254

Asked by: Gavin Brown, MSP for Lothians, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 23 November 2009
Current Status: Answered by Fergus Ewing on 27 November 2009

To ask the Scottish Executive how many people convicted of handling an offensive weapon in the Lothian and Borders police force area were aged (a) under 16, (b) 16 to 21, (c) 22 to 30 and (d) over 30 at the time of the offence in each of the last 10 years.

The available information is given in the following table.

Persons With a Charge Proved in the Lothian and Borders Police Force Area, for Handling Offensive Weapons^{1, 3} by Age, 1998-99 to 2007-08

Age²	1998-99	1999-2000	2000-01	2001-02	2002-03	2003-04	2004-05	2005-06	2006-07	2007-08
Under 16	0	0	0	1	0	1	0	0	0	0
16-21	107	84	113	133	162	102	113	126	154	115
22-30	92	61	67	72	85	91	125	98	148	132
Over 30	61	54	54	64	73	96	104	91	109	107
Total	260	199	234	270	320	290	342	315	411	354

Notes:

1. Main offence.

2. Age at time of the offence is not available; age is at date of sentence.

3. Handling an offensive weapon covers the crime categories: possession of an offensive weapon, restriction of an offensive weapon and having in a public place an article with a blade or point.